The great thing about tablets is that they don’t come with a cumbersome keyboard, well unless you have a Zaggmate for your iPad, or an Asus Transformer or one of these new keyboards produced by RIM for their Blackberry Playbook.

The new keyboard will connect to the Playbook via Bluetooth and have the same footprint as the tablet. At this stage it doesn’t come with a way of marrying the two together although RIM is said to be working on a case that will allow users to comfortably use the keyboard with the tablet and carry both together in one neat package. Another neat feature is a mouse pad, which actually looks more like a small recessed spacebar (seen here on the right).

The addition of a keyboard will transform your tablet into a notebook which for many seems like a great idea; understandably others see this as a complete contradiction of owning a tablet. Unusually on this point we like to sit on the fence as we can see the benefit of having a detachable keyboard to leave in the office or at home to bash out emails and work on.

Richard Sharp is the founder of gadgetsandgizmos.org. He loves technology, gadgets (comes with the territory) and social media. You'll find him writing features, attending events and playing with cool tech. Life's good.